SPRINGFIELD, Ill (AP) - Michelle “Micki” Smith’s winning entry for a Ralph Lauren national design contest shows a Black man, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. It simply reads “Hope” with an N95 mask taking the place of the “O.”
The model for Smith’s drawing was her 24-year-old son, Micah, who has lived with Smith and her husband, Michael, since returning from Florida in February.
The piece, titled “Just Let Me Breathe,” was submitted to the contest, Smith told the State Journal-Register, a week before the George Floyd killing at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25. One of the cries of protests and rallies that broke out as a result of Floyd’s death was “I Can’t Breathe,” words Floyd uttered before his death.
Smith, in a telephone interview Tuesday, said the Feb. 23 killing of Ahmaud Arbery was on her mind at the time she submitted her work, along with concern and anxiety for her son.
While the contest was described as “seeing hope moving forward from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Smith is well aware the drawing had another effect.
“It’s about the dangers of young Black men fighting COVID, but it’s also about fighting racism,” said Smith, 51, a Springfield native. “I’m compelled to draw what I feel at the time.
“You want to be able to take the mask off and breathe again. He’s reaching back (in the drawing), trying to get a breath. How does my son stay safe (in the pandemic and against racism)?
“It seemed fitting on both sides.”
The shirt will be sold on the Polo app and on www.RalphLauren.com beginning Wednesday.
Smith allowed that many people who voted for her drawing after it was selected as one of the 10 finalists probably saw it as “a George Floyd piece. If George Floyd didn’t happen, would the piece have had the same impact on people?
“It was the timing of it all.”
Smith, who works as an information technology associate for the Illinois State Police, said her family are “huge fans” of Ralph Lauren. She learned about the contest, “Polo Project: Design for Good,” through a subscription email.
Smith’s son originally modeled for photos, the basis for the drawing, wearing a bandana. Smith said she completed the drawing in “an unusually short amount of time” to get it entered in the contest.
″(Micah) was over the moon about the drawing,” Smith said. “I never thought I’d win. I didn’t know how it would go over.
“My goal was to get interest (from the Ralph Lauren design team). I just wanted to get the exposure.”
Smith admitted her drawing “stood out given what was going on at the time and as an original piece. (The drawing) was totally different than anything that’s been on a Ralph Lauren design before.”
Smith credited her art teacher at Ursuline Academy, Teresa Gregoire, for bringing her into an independent one-on-one art class and showing the basics and techniques for drawing.
“My pieces were flat and didn’t have a lot of dimension at the time,” admitted Smith, who is a member of the Springfield Artist Collective and the Colored Pencil Society of America.
Gregoire, Smith said, taught “the grid method,” which Smith still employs in her beginner’s drawing classes through Lincoln Land Community College’s Community Education.
All of the proceeds from sales of the 2,500 shirts will go to the COVID-Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization. Additionally, “to honor the shirt’s message” and as part of the company’s pledge to address systemic racism and racial injustice, the Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation is making a donation to the United Negro College Fund.
“It was definitely God-ordained,” Smith said of winning the contest. “Ultimately, (the shirt’s message) is an element of hope.”
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